Before 1974, vice presidents either bought a temporary home in
Washington DC or stayed at hotels.

Gerald and Betty Ford were the first family eligible to live in
the house. But the resignation of President Richard Nixon
occurred before renovations on the house were completed, and the Fords
headed to the White House. New Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, of
the wealthy Rockefeller family, used the house mainly to
entertain.

The first full-time residents were Walter Mondale, President Jimmy Carter's
vice president, and his wife, Joan, in 1977. Every vice president
since has lived there.

The house is a three-story, white-painted brick, Victorian-style
home with 9,150 square feet of floor space. It served as the home of
the chief of the Naval Observatory beginning in
1929. This is why people often call it the Admiral's House.